


flights

by skuls



Series: X Files Rewatch Series [18]
Category: The X-Files, The X-Files: Fight the Future (1998)
Genre: F/M, Movie: Fight The Future, UST, also they spend a lot of time on airplanes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-27
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-02-22 16:35:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13170870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skuls/pseuds/skuls
Summary: The flights Mulder and Scully took during Fight the Future.





	flights

**Author's Note:**

> the working title for this was "flight the future".
> 
> i should disclaim that i was about eight the last time i was on a plane, and the flight lasted about a half an hour. i should also disclaim that my details on mulder getting to antarctica are based off of google maps and a couple of searches. any inaccuracies are due to this.

**Dallas to DC, June 5, 1998**

They had a meeting with OPR in the morning, so they got on a flight home almost immediately. Scully had begun to dislike the continuous flights after a year and a half on the X-Files (when the plane leaving the ground started making her stomach lurch, made her wonder if she was remembering her abduction), but ever since the Pincus case in Chicago, she'd hated them with a burning passion. The jostling of people crammed in a sardine can-like space, the wailing of babies or toddlers, the potential for bags to come tumbling out of overhead spaces. At least they hadn't split up her and Mulder, she'd thought more than once since the X-Files office went up in flames, but she especially thought so on flights. It was nice to have company. 

Maybe not on the flight after the bomb in Dallas, though. Mulder had been quiet since they left the site, responding to questions with tight-jawed nods. They both still smelled like smoke from the explosion. Michaud was dead, and Scully knew he blamed himself, even though it wasn't his fault. Even though his hunch kept the whole thing from being worse. Even if he'd almost died himself. 

Scully swallowed and looked away from Mulder where he slumped absently in his seat, ahead to where the sign informed her that she could unbuckle her seatbelt. She did so with a click. Silence on Mulder's end. Minutes later, she turned to him, nudging his shoulder. “Mulder?”

“Mm,” he grunted, staring ahead at the front of the plane. 

“You can take off your seatbelt now,” she said gently.

Momentarily stunned, he looked up at the sign and then down at his seatbelt, releasing it. “Oh. Thanks,” he said quietly. 

Scully watched him quietly, lips pressed together. Since the X-Files office burned, he'd been unmoored, disoriented. Joking one minute and stunned and quiet the next. Maybe it had something to do with his friend, Diana’s, recovery from her bullet wound, or maybe it was just the office. Either way, he was clinging to her like a vine on a tree—purely in the metaphorical sense, of course; their physical relationship was chaste as ever. But he seemed to have a greater attachment to her than usual, which was saying something. Like she was all that was left of his old, X-Files solving life. The smell of smoke clung to them both, hanging around them like a musky cloud. “Hey, Mulder,” she said, perhaps too gently. “You know what happened out there today wasn’t your fault, right?”

He didn’t answer. He pulled at the hem of his jacket, staring hard at the cockpit of the plane. “I shouldn’t have left Michaud alone in there,” he said finally.

“You had no choice,” said Scully firmly. “Mulder, if you’d stayed in there, you’d be dead, too.” 

He worked his jaw back and forth, thinking. She reached out and put a hand on his arm, rubbing up and down. “It’s not your fault,” she said again, quietly. Maybe she was selfish, but she was glad Michaud had sent them out. She was glad he was alive. 

Mulder rubbed his face with a callused hand, finally turning to look at her. “I know that,” he said, “and you know that, but I don’t know if the FBI knows that.”

She bit her lip, considering. Yes, it was likely that she and Mulder would be blamed for the entire thing. It wouldn’t be the first time. She took her hand away from his arm and leaned back in her seat.

“Thanks, by the way,” Mulder muttered. His fingers brushed, briefly, over the back of her hand. “For getting me out of there.”

Scully smiled a little, letting her head loll against the side of his seat. “Anytime,” she said. 

When the drink cart came rumbling down the aisle, she reached for her wallet. She owed him a drink. 

 

**DC to Dallas, June 7, 1998**

Mulder didn’t hear from Scully after she hung up on him in the military facility, not in the hours it took him to get home, get some things together, and drive to the airport. He booked a lone ticket to Dallas. 

The flight was lonely. His seat was way too cramped; he shifted several times in his seat, crossed his legs in a futile attempt to find a comfortable position before falling asleep with his head lolling against the wall. He was trying not to dwell on the fact that Scully didn't want to come. That she said she was quitting, essentially leaving him. First the X-Files, and now Scully. He didn't know if he could bear losing both. Losing her. He didn't know how he would be able to go on without her. 

He woke up when the plane began descending, immediately looked for Scully to see if she was afraid and remembered she wasn't there. He'd flown without her plenty before, but the first sign of her running away and suddenly it was like he was missing his left arm. He gulped, folding up his tray and sitting up. 

He went straight to the Dallas field office. He was not expecting to see Scully, but when she entered the office, a sense of relief filled him from head to toe. 

 

**Dallas to DC, June 8, 1998**

After their frantic fleeing from the cornfield, it took hours to drive back to the airport, a couple hours more to get a flight. They'd be cutting it close, but it looked like Scully might make her hearing. Mulder stood close to her, his fingers hovering near her hand like he might suddenly grab her hand and drag her off towards another adventure. He let her have the window seat on the plane.

Scully was itching underneath her suit jacket. She tugged at the cuffs, twisted it around her to scratch, before finally peeling it off and draping it across the back of the seat. “Itchy?” Mulder asked from next to her. 

Scully nodded. She could still feel the corn stalks brushing against her arms, whapping her in the face. She hoped the flight would get back in time to take a shower before her hearing. Mulder's panicked voice still echoed through her mind, the buzzing of bees and the thrumming of helicopters. 

Mulder nodded, scratching at the top of his wrist. “Corn’s a bitch,” he agreed. “I did a corn maze as a kid once. I got lost and had to cut through; I itched for  _ hours _ afterwards.”

“Oh, joy,” Scully said dryly, scratching up and down her arm, crossing her knees. “If that's any indication of my future, than I assume it is not pretty.”

She suddenly felt his eyes on her, and she knew what he was thinking of: the possibility that she would leave him to pursue his quest alone. He was thinking that was likely their future, and no, it wasn't pretty at all. She started squirming, and it wasn't just because of the itching. “I'll have you back in time for your hearing,” he said out loud, almost sadly, and she knew he was hoping they wouldn't reassign her. She wasn't sure what she was hoping for. 

“That's good,” she said, pushing hair behind her ears. 

The pilot's voice came crackling over the intercom, announcing that they were taking off. They buckled their seatbelt and Scully settled in her seat.“Hey, Scully,” Mulder said suddenly. His fingers brushed over her hand, and then he was holding it. He squeezed her hand before letting go.  “Thanks for coming with me.”

She smiled a little at him; she couldn't help it. She really would miss him if she quit. She wasn't sure how to have a life, a career without Mulder. She couldn't say  _ of course _ or  _ always _ , because if she quit, neither of those things would be true, but it was what she was thinking. She nodded her head and said, “You're welcome,” instead, because she didn't know what else to say. 

Fear rose unexpectedly in her throat when they told her she would be transferred to Utah. She would have to quit now, and she felt like she didn't know how to do anything else. She went to her desk and typed up her letter of resignation, sliding it under Skinner's door before driving to Mulder's apartment to tell him. 

 

**DC to Antarctica, June 10, 1998**

The bandage wrapped around Mulder's head before he left for the airport was driving him crazy. He'd irritated it somewhere between being at gunpoint and running from an exploding car, and it had started bleeding again. Skinner had insisted when he drove him to the airport, bandaged it clumsily himself. Scully would've done a better job. He peeled it off in the bathroom, staring at his reflection in the mirror. The wound reminded him with a pang again: he'd let them take her. In that moment, he hated himself for not seeing through the entire thing. 

He had to switch flights several times, finally getting on his last commercial flight to Australia. The Gunmen had helped him find a pilot who was willing to fly him to the coordinates.  They had Scully in Antarctica. Fucking Wilkes Land, Antarctica. He was disoriented, and he thought it must be more than just the bullet wound. He couldn't believe she was gone. On one of his connecter flights, in the middle of the night, he found himself replaying their last moments together. When he almost kissed her. When he'd run off to call 9-1-1 and come back to find her unconscious. And then he had to scold himself for thinking of it as their last moments.  _ She's alive, _ he reminded himself.  _ I will see her again.  _

He fell asleep and dreamed of Scully in the desert, her hair blowing in a dry wind. The dust rose up in dark red clouds; he couldn't see her face. When he woke, there was green beneath him. He switched flights again, and the green slowly began to turn to white. 

He could feel his heart thudding in his chest as he pulled on coats, extra layers for Scully in case they hadn't given her warm clothes. He had no idea what to expect. He pictured it again and again: the warm weight of her body in his arms as they weighted for the ambulance, her pulse thready the way she had described it, her breathing shaky. He hadn't wanted to let her go when the paramedics came, as if he knew somehow that they weren't paramedics. He didn't know what to expect, what they'd done with her. He wanted to kill every one of them. 

The pilot landed at a base, the bitter cold seeping through the metal of the plane. The people at the base gave him a Sno-Cat.

 

**Antarctica to Australia, June 11, 1998**

Someone found them in the Sno-Cat, where Scully and Mulder had stumbled, near frozen. Apparently, that someone knew Mulder. Scully was half asleep, both arms wrapped tightly around him. The someone urged the both of them to their feet, nudging them towards another Sno-Cat. Scully's arms slipped from around Mulder, but she fumbled for and grabbed the icy sleeve of his jacket. Her fingers were tingling, almost warm.  _ Frostbite, _ she diagnosed idly, but she didn't let go. They stumbled into the other Sno-Cat, collapsing on the seat, and she wrapped her arms back around him. He was stiffly hugging her again, his face pressed into her neck. The stranger got in on the other side of them and started the engine. They began to move. Scully closed her eyes. 

She woke later on a plane, on a smelly mattress under several blankets and pressed against Mulder, his skin icy. She didn't have enough clothes on. They were both cold. “Body heat,” she mumbled in Mulder's ear. He stirred, but said nothing. She crawled closer.

“Hang tight, miss!” yelled the stranger from the ice from the cockpit of the plane. A pilot, she supposed. “I'll have an ambulance come to the airfield and take you straight to the hospital. 

_ Hospital, _ thought Scully. The last time she'd been taken to the hospital, she thought she might’ve been kidnapped. The last thing she could remember was Mulder's voice and then a gunshot.  _ Gunshot, _ she thought, desperately, and wrapped herself harder around Mulder, arms around his shoulder, legs around his waist. “Mulder,” she whispered into his hair. “Were you shot?”

“Mmm,” he grunted into her jacket. His arms tightened around her waist. “Just a little.”

“A little?” she demanded, but her voice was wavering. She was so sleepy. The plane shook with turbulence; it was a shitty little plane, she noticed, even more of a tin can than others, and that made her nervous. She burrowed her frozen body closer, said, “Mulder…”

“Mm okay,” he mumbled. “Nn you're okay. That's what matters.”

The fog was settling in. Scully huddled up under the blankets, closer to Mulder, and rested her head against his shoulders. Some feeling seemed to be coming back into her appendages. They could argue over this later. She let her eyes slip closed. 

 

**Australia to DC, June 14, 1998**

They were released from the hospital a few days later, Scully with a clean bill of health. Mulder drove them to the airport, looking back and forth between the road and Scully out of the corner of his eye. She was still wearing a sweater, despite the temperature still being fairly warm. They'd been dumped in a winter wonderland in the middle of summer. He'd wondered, more than once, how it must've felt to fall asleep in the hot, humid DC climate and wake up to the subzero temperatures of Antarctica. He'd wondered, more than once, what she remembered. 

She was playing with her cross. She'd showed up in his room a day after they'd been rescued and he'd given it to her. She'd hugged him tightly, long-sleeved arms around his neck, and he'd thought about kissing her. She was so small and cold in his arms. He selfishly wanted to pick up where they left off. 

He didn't kiss her. They hadn't mentioned the scene in his hallway outside of clarifying what happened. Scully was horrified he hadn't let his gunshot wound heal more fully before running off to save her. “I couldn't wait, Scully,” he'd told her seriously, and she'd seemed to understand. He'd wanted to tell her that he needed her, needed her to be safe, but he couldn't tell her that anymore. He'd decided when her heart had stopped underneath all the snow and ice: he had to let her go. He had to push her away, or he was going to watch her die. This close call had been the last straw in a long string of close calls: too close, too near losing her forever. And he couldn't risk that. At least if he got her to leave, let her quit the FBI without guilt, than he'd know she was safe and alive somewhere. He didn't kiss her because he didn't want her to stay. 

They drove to the airport, and found that their flight was delayed by a few hours. Scully found a patch of sunlight with a cluster of chairs and sat, pushing the small bag that Mulder had purchased at the hospital gift shop, full of clothes he had also purchased at the gift shop, behind her feet. When Mulder sat beside her, he was surprised to feel her leaning into him, her head on his shoulder. When he looked down at her in surprise, she said, simply, “You're warm.” He put an arm around her, unable to help himself. He told himself it wouldn't go any further than this. 

She fell asleep on his shoulder and he didn't move for the entire two hours it took for their flight to be called. She was okay, he had found her. And he had to make sure she stayed that way.

They boarded the plane hours later. He let her have the window seat. She curled into the corner of it, pulling her legs up. He smiled a little at her as he sat down beside her. They'd gotten first class tickets. 

“Hey,” Scully said, buckling her seatbelt as the sign flashed. She brushed her fingers over the back of his hand before taking it. “Thanks for coming after me.”

It was an exchange they'd had twice in the past week or so, except for the fact that she was the one doing the thanking this time. It was usually him. And there was no question of whether or not he would've come, the way there was no question of whether or not she'd save him; he would always come for her. And he told her so. “Always,” he said, squeezing her fingers. 

She smiled at him, the cross glinting gold around her neck. She left her hand in his as they left the ground.


End file.
